And i say segregation now segregation tomorrow and segregation forever september of 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of integration on campus but the problem is still alive the mallet assembly a student-run organization that celebrates equality and diversity took a stand and decided to do something about the recurring acts of segregation recently we began
Documenting acts of injustice on campus which we feel need to be brought to life i want all of you to stand with us and continue this commitment racism real or perceived is wrong no matter what the opinion that discrimination will always be around as long as there are
People that are complicit and letting it continue you at home your tax dollars go to pay for the leases for all the fraternity house and all the sorority houses on campus your tax sellers at work are going to institutionalize racism that’s part of why this is a very big deal
The mallet assembly has always fought for the rights of minority groups but there are still instances on campus where they’re excluded at the beginning of every school year there’s a big pool party welcome back to students there will be black people there but most of them are football players or ex-football players
The first gate we went to the dude said he couldn’t let us sing because we didn’t have on swimsuits somehow within the 14 seconds it took us to get to the other gate they were at max capacity it was clear that there weren’t a lot of minorities there
A lot of the old wounds from alabama’s transgressions are still open the university of alabama campus at tuscaloosa is under a tight security guard of state police as governor george wallace prepares to confront a deputy u.s attorney the federal officers are armed with a proclamation from president
Kennedy urging the governor to end his efforts to prevent two negro students from registering at the university five minutes after the governor leaves james hood is the first of his race to become a university of alabama student the mallet assembly was founded in 1961 by dr john w blackburn to foster
Integration in on-campus housing since then it’s been at the forefront of keeping the university on task with integration it’s not something that oh it’s 50 years ago you know we don’t need to worry about this anymore no it’s still a problem and it’s definitely a problem here on campus when
It comes to greek life but it’s not even that the people in the greek organization are racist like the individuals inside the fraternities it’s just that that’s how they were they’re like taught to act around minorities sometimes we uh the progressive organizations will come together hold meetings we build some in
Our basement in this dorm before this isn’t the first year that an african-american student has tried to play as one of those working white group organizations have been turned away it just happens that this year one of the students is the granddaughter of the sub studio
I went to law school at the university of alabama i started there in 1969 in the first class of african americans that the university law school admitted i have two sons who both graduated and then a daughter all of them finished the university of amber law school saw my children are lawyers
Kennedy my granddaughter um you know she you know 4.3 grade point average uh and just an outstanding student who had a chance to look at alabama up close and decide to go now how she feels about it now i don’t know at the time that i went through the sga
President had a number of executive assistants and they were over certain aspects of campus life i had applied for one of those positions and did not get them and in my mind they went to uh members of fraternities and sororities whose family members had gone through alabama
A professor used the term enclaves of privilege they’ve set up these enclaves of privilege with university backing but in time we’ll all grow as people from having a more comfortably intermingling campus and i think we all can really get behind that all right i’ll just make sure y’all are off the uh
Off the the private property it has to be a long long process of fostering not only integration and diversity but also just general good personhood just being nice to people and i think we all can really get behind that we’re gonna have to do a lot more all right
No it’s like tight for the summertime muscle you know on september 18th the mallard assembly and a number of other organizations held a rally on campus to take a stand against racism students at the university of alabama have become disgusted and embarrassed by the state of racial segregation that
Continues to this day on our campus ultimately not doing anything about the white black division good morning y’all all right so here’s the deal by someone you don’t know hold their hand be diverse this is a largely quiet demonstration to bring back memories of the vivid vivid
60s so keep that in mind as you’re being polite orderly because of those kind of bravery to speak out there have been actions within the past few days that have begun our walk towards progress however there’s still so much to do these issues are not easy and will not be fixed overnight
I’m slightly concerned that now it looks potentially to the national media like the problem is solved and university of alabama is not racist after all and that’s not the case there’s much more work we need to do and i hope that the success and positivity of this event has
Not derailed the serious negativity that we’re fighting let’s do the alabama fight song you guys might know about the song alabama football have been trying to sell to the university for a couple of years now you remember it goes and we singing a game day oh
Today we took what will hopefully be the first step of a thousand mile journey to end discrimination here and hopefully another institutions that have sort of set themselves up those bastions of injustice where’d you start well
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